Dear Wandsworth Borough Council,

I am interested in data on traffic speeds and volumes in Tranmere Road, particularly given the proposed school street as announced in your press release of today.

I would like the raw data from the latest Automatic Traffic Count survey closest to Earlsfield Primary School, together with any key to understanding codes within the data, and any other information necessary to understand the data.

Yours faithfully,

David Knight

Dear Freedom Of Information,

Please can you respond to my request. This is now overdue.

Yours sincerely,

David Knight

Dear Wandsworth Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Wandsworth Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Tranmere Road Automatic Traffic Count survey'.

Thank you for your reply of 1 May 2019 in relation to this my request (your reference 2019/0945). I am asking for an internal review as I believe Section 22 has been misapplied. My grounds are outlined below.

In the ICO guidance, (https://ico.org.uk/media/1172/informatio...) the application of Section 22 is discussed.

"Information is exempt if, at the time when the public authority receives a request for it:
the public authority holds the requested information;
the public authority intends the information to be published at some future date, whether that date is determined or not; and
in all the circumstances it is reasonable to withhold the information until its planned publication.

It is a qualified exemption and therefore public authorities must consider whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption is greater than the public interest in disclosing the requested information"

Your response gave your grounds for the use of the S22 exemption:

"Please note that the School Streets Initiative is due to be presented at a forthcoming Overview and Scrutiny Committee and raw traffic data will not be available until the conclusion of the trial as data can often be misinterpreted and could potentially influence the public’s perception of a scheme. Therefore the Council is currently unable to respond fully to your request as the information is exempt from disclosure under Section 22 – Intended for future publication of the Freedom of Information Act 2000."

“the public authority holds the requested information”

You have confirmed that you hold the information requested, ie "raw data from the latest Automatic Traffic Count survey closest to Earlsfield Primary School, together with any key to understanding codes within the data, and any other information necessary to understand the data".

“the public authority intends the information to be published at some future date, whether that date is determined or not”

It is not clear from your response whether the requested information (ie raw traffic data) is in fact to be presented to the forthcoming OSC and will be published at that time. I also understand that not all material provided to OSC is in fact published. If it is the case that the requested information is to be provided at the forthcoming OSC, please can you let me know when and where it will be published.

You then mention that raw traffic data will not be available until the conclusion of the SSI trial and that you won’t publish it now. This reason consists of two parts - (1) the fact that raw data will be available at the conclusion of the trial and (2) that to publish it now may distort the public perception of the scheme.

(1) may be a simple misunderstanding of the original request. I asked for raw data from the latest available ATS not for data during or after the trial. If this misunderstanding is the case please can you provide the information requested in the original request - you can then ignore the rest of this response.

If the above is not the case and (1) and (2) together are your grounds for applying s22, there are two problems. Firstly (as the ICO guidance makes clear), in order to apply s22 there must be "a settled expectation that the information will be published at some future date." Since the request is for the raw traffic data, an expectation of publishing a summary is not sufficient - "The information that the public authority intends to be published must be the specific information the applicant has requested." It is noted that the "conclusion of the trial" is a vague and undetermined date. In fact, the OSC has not yet agreed the date or even whether a trial will go ahead. Do you have a "settled expectation" of the publication of the complete raw traffic data? At what point after the conclusion of the trial will this be published?

“in all the circumstances it is reasonable to withhold the information until its planned publication”
Secondly, s22 is subject to a public interest test. Your words "data can often be misinterpreted and could potentially influence the public’s perception of a scheme" appear to be your assessment of the public interest in withholding the information. I understand this view, though turning it around this is precisely why such information should be made public. Only by the open provision of such data will proper and informed public debate take place. For example, the provision of mean daytime speed could be extremely misleading if traffic speeds are affected by congestion at peak times. It says nothing about the distribution of speeds and how that distribution changes during the day and on different days of the week. This is critical to the public’s understanding of the SSI proposals and wider traffic issues on residential streets.

On (2) the guidance also suggests "[i]n most instances public authorities will not be able to argue that information is too technical, complex or misleading to disclose, or that it may be misunderstood or is incomplete, because they can explain it or set it into context." Provided (as in the original request) that sufficient information is given to understand the raw traffic data items, there is little interpretation of the data to be made - they are what they are. The policy implications that might lead from the public analysis of such data are of course another matter but the request is for the raw data. This is explored further in the public interest guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio... - “The argument that it would not be in the public interest to publish inaccurate or misleading data would usually only carry any weight if the section 22 exemption is claimed (information intended for future publication) and the public authority’s publication plans include providing the necessary context or explanation. In any other type of case, the argument may only be used if it is not possible to provide this explanation, or if the explanation would not limit any damage caused.”

Futhermore, as the ICO guidance suggests, the further into the future and the more indeterminate the publication date, the greater the public interest in publishing now - "the public interest in releasing the information will often be stronger if the publication date is far in the future or where it isn’t set." Since there is no determined date nor can there be when no trial has been agreed, there is an even stronger public interest in publication in this case. To reemphasise, the request is for raw traffic data now, that is, before the trial takes place.

Your use of s22 suggests that you think other grounds (such as cost or commercial interests) for withholding the information are not appropriate. There is little cost in providing such information which should already be available in a readily available format or easily converted to such.

I would be grateful if you would review your decision in the light of the above discussion. In summary:

There is no settled intention to publish the requested information - raw traffic data.

Even if there were such an intention, the public interest is strongly in the direction of publication. This is even stronger given the future and indeterminate date for publication.

As your public interest test includes the use of potentially misleading data, that only holds if as well as intending to publish the raw data you also intend to provide the necessary context or explanation.

There is a strong public interest in the publication of these data and that should outweigh any potential harm, which in any case would be mitigated by the provision of explanatory material.

For the avoidance of any confusion, if it isn’t clear from the original request, the data should be provided in a common computer-readable format.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/t...

thank you

David Knight

Dear Mr Fellows,

I am writing in response to your email in which you wrote you would complete the internal review by 6th June or let me know if for any reason you were unable to achieve this. I am disappointed not to have received either the review conclusions or a notification of a delay. Please can you update me on the progress of this case.

Yours sincerely,

David Knight

Dear Mr Fellows,

Thank you for your reply of today. I am deeply disappointed that my request from March will be delayed even further. I do hope you can resolve the outstanding issues and reply before your scheduled date of 21 June.

Yours sincerely,

David Knight